Mamdani: If I'm the Mayor, the NYPD will arrest Netanyahu

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, said that if elected, he would order the New York Police Department to arrest the prime minister of Israel if he sets foot in the city, offering new details on how he plans to carry out a campaign pledge.

Mr. Mamdani said in an interview with The New York Times that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was a war criminal who was committing genocide in Gaza. If the Israeli leader were to come to New York, Mr. Mamdani said, he would honor a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu’s arrest by having him apprehended at the airport.

Legal experts suggested that having Netanyahu arrested would be a practical impossibility, and some said it could violate federal law. Even so, Mamdani’s pledge will likely provoke strong reactions in New York, the second-largest home to Jews in the world.

Although New Yorkers now generally express support for Palestinians over Israel in its war with Hamas, Mamdani’s vow could still complicate his attempt to reassure a segment of Jewish leaders who had expressed concern about some of his stances, including his refusal to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” He has since said he would discourage the use of the phrase, even as he holds to his position that Israel’s leader is a war criminal.

Mamdani had said earlier in the mayor’s race that he would arrest Netanyahu. In the interview on Thursday, he did not back down and offered new specifics, affirming that he would order the police to make the arrest upon Mr. Netanyahu’s arrival in the city. “This is something that I intend to fulfill,” Mamdani said.

Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman who leads in the polls ahead of the November election, said that state and local Democrats needed to show that they would take action where the federal government will not. He cited a decision made by Gavin Newsom, now the governor of California, in 2004, when, as mayor of San Francisco, he defied federal law and issued marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

“This is a moment where we cannot look to the federal government for leadership,” Mr. Mamdani said. “This is a moment when cities and states will have to demonstrate what it actually looks like to stand up for our own values, our own people.”

The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court and does not recognize its authority. President Trump moved to punish the court in February for issuing the warrant for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest, arguing that it had “no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel.”

Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment, though he said in July that he was not worried about Mamdani’s threat. A spokeswoman for the Consulate General of Israel in New York declined to comment.

Mamdani has been a fierce critic of Israel, and his criticism has escalated during Israel’s war in Gaza. A recent survey by The New York Times and Siena University showed that New Yorkers supported Mamdani's stance on Israel and on the war. And he held a slim lead with the poll’s small sample of Jewish likely voters, with about 30 percent support, closely followed by the current mayor, Eric Adams, and former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Mamdani’s main rival in the mayor’s race, is a strong supporter of Israel and volunteered to join Mr. Netanyahu’s legal defense team in November, shortly after the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for Mr. Netanyahu.

Beth Van Schaack, the United States ambassador at large for global criminal justice under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said that an arrest could theoretically be possible under that provision. She noted that at least two individuals with active I.C.C. warrants had been arrested after entering American custody in the past, though neither arrest occurred in the United States.

But she said that it was not clear that the New York police would be empowered to make such an arrest. And another expert, Todd Buchwald, who held the same ambassadorship as Ms. Van Schaack under President Barack Obama and Trump, said the amendment would not allow for an arrest by state or local officials.

If the police were to arrest Netanyahu in New York, several experts said the action would need to be pursuant to a violation of state or city law, but it was not clear what the charges might be. And Buchwald added that, even if the Israeli leader were charged with a crime, he was entitled to head of state immunity, under one of several international laws that would protect Netanyahu.

It is also not clear if Police Department officials would accede to Mamdani’s request to arrest Netanyahu. George Grasso, the department’s deputy commissioner for legal matters from 1997 to 2002, said the idea was “bizarre.”

He said that part of his job entailed telling the mayor at the time, Rudolph W. Giuliani, when his requests ran afoul of the police’s legal authority. “I would look the mayor in the eye and say, ‘No, we can’t do it,’” he recalled.

In arguing for Mr. Netanyahu’s arrest, Mamdani noted that the Israeli prime minister had made military decisions while in New York that killed civilians in the Middle East.

Netanyahu said this summer at a meeting at the White House with Trump that he was not concerned about Mamdani’s comments, and called the prospect of him being arrested “silly in many ways.”

Trump added in reference to Mamdani: “He better behave. Otherwise, he’s going to have big problems.”